1. Professor James Hansen(top US climate scientist; Head, NASA’s Goddard
Institute for Space Studies; adjunct professor, Columbia; University, New York, USA), February
2009: “The most honest effective way to achieve a carbon price capable
of driving our economy and our society to the clean world of the future is
“Carbon Tax with 100% Dividend” … This tax, and the knowledge that it would
continue to increase in the future, would spur innovations in energy efficiency
and carbon-free energy sources. The dividend would put money in the hands of
the public, allowing them to purchase vehicles and other products that reduce
their carbon footprint and thus their taxes. The person doing better than
average would obtain more from the dividend than paid in the tax. The tax would
affect building designs and serve as an effective enforcer of energy efficient
building codes that are now widely ignored. The need to replace inefficient
infrastructure would spur the economy. Tax and 100% dividend can drive innovation and
economic growth with a snowballing effect. Carbon emissions
will plummet far faster than alternative top-down regulations. Our
infrastructure will be modernized for the clean energy future. There will be no
need to go the most extreme environments on Earth for the last drop of fossil
fuel, to squeeze oil from tar shale, or develop other unconventional fossil fuels.A
tax on coal, oil and gas is simple. It can be collected easily and reliably at
the first point of sale, at the mine or oil well, or at the port of entry. This
approach also implies the fastest most effective way to international
agreements … The abject failure of Cap & Trade was illuminated for all to
see by the Kyoto Protocol, the granddaddy of all Cap & Trade schemes. Even
countries that accepted the toughest emission reduction targets, such as Japan, saw
their emissions actually increase. The problem is the inevitable loopholes in
such complex approaches, which take years to negotiate and implement. The
Congressional Budget Office provides a comparison of carbon taxes to
cap-and-trade. That report concludes that a given emission reduction could be
achieved at a fraction of the cost via a carbon tax, as opposed to
cap-and-trade. Another useful comparison is also available. The worst thing
about cap-and-trade [ETS], from a climate standpoint, is that it will surely be
inadequate to achieve the sharp reduction of emissions that is needed. Thus
cap-and-trade would practically guarantee disastrous climate change for our
children and grandchildren. The only solution to the climate problem is to leave much of the fossil
fuels in the ground. That requires a high enough carbon price that we move on
to our energy future beyond fossil fuels.Summary. The honest approach, the effective approach, for solving
the global warming problem would be a tax with 100% dividend. The public is not
stupid. They will understand that the hooks and eyes of a less comprehensive
more dissembling approach will be put there for some reason other than saving
the future for their children. One of the biggest advantages of the Tax and
Dividend approach is its simplicity, which would allow it to be introduced
quickly. The Kyoto-like Cap & Trade is notoriously slow to negotiate and
implement, as well as being ineffective in the end. A related point is that an
effective international accord could be implemented with only a few of the
major economies. Import duties on countries not imposing a comparable tax would
surely bring broad rapid compliance.” [1].

2. Jonathan Leake(science
and environment editor of the UK Sunday Times), March 2009: “Britain’s faith
in carbon trading as a way of reducing greenhouse gases could be
dangerously misplaced, according to an independent academic working with the
Department of Energy and Climate Change. Dr Chris Hope of the University of
Cambridge’s Judge Business School … [has] a far wider conclusion: the
current European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is deeply flawed and
should be replaced – or at least augmented – with a green tax … For the ETS to
work, the price has to be set at a level that makes it worthwhile for consumers
to cut their energy use. According to Hope’s research, the minimum price needed
is about £85 per tonne [A$173] , rising at roughly 2 to 3 per cent a year …
Prices now stand at roughly £9.50 [A$19] per tonne of CO2 – less
than 12 per cent of what Hope’s calculations show is needed.… He believes a
market-based trading system such as the ETS is very unlikely to generate
consistent high prices, and this instability could undermine the whole point of
the scheme”. [2].

3. Professor William Nordhaus (Sterling Professor of Economics, Yale University, USA),
March 2009: “The international community is making huge wager on the Kyoto model. The wager is
that the cap-and-trade structure contained in the model will do the job of
slowing global warming. The new United States Administration advocated that the
U.S.
adopt this system as its contribution top solving the global problem, and the
primary legislation in the U.S. Congress is firmly a cap-and-trade proposal.
But, as I have suggested above, the cap-and-trade approach is a poor choice of
mechanism. It is untested in the international context; it has been unable to
attain anything close to universal participation; and it has the inherent flaws
just described. It is unlikely that the Kyoto
model, even if strengthened, can achieve its climate objectives in an efficient
and effective manner. To bet the world’s climate system and global environment
on an untested approach with such clear structural flaws would appear a
reckless gamble. History is lettered with failed institutions. You need only to
look today at the wreckage of the current financial system to see the latest
example of the effects of failed regulatory and risk-management design. So, if
the Kyoto model
turns out to be another failed model, it has lots of company. But it would be
better to recognize and change it now, rather than in one or two more decades
of ineffective and inefficient efforts to slow emissions. The international
community should move quickly to replace the current cap-and-trade structure
with one in which the central economic mechanism is a tax on greenhouse-gas
emissions.” [3].

4. Professor Jacqueline McGlade (Director of the European Environment Agency, Copenhagen,
marine biologist and Professor of Environmental Informatics in the Department
of Mathematics at University College London, UK), March 2009: "His [Nordhaus’]
idea is very sensible. We need to move the burden of taxation away from labour
to resources — and tax not just on carbon but other resources such as water to
tackle the far wider environmental and resource problems we face." [4].

5. Professor Daniel M. Kammen, (Energy and Resources Group and Goldman School
of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley), March 2009: “Evolving the field of climate solutions
science: the economics of clean and sustainable energy must be supported for individuals
and companies to achieve a shared vision; a price on greenhouse gas emissions
is essential (but alone it is not sufficient); innovative financing is needed
to advantage clean energy; innovation and implementation is needed in the North
and South; scientific, and policy innovations open the door for quantified
cases of clean development that, in turn, can reset the political landscape in favour
of a low carbon future.” [5].

6. Professor Barry Brook (Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change, University
of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia),
2009: “1. A cap and trade mechanism is by its nature, an all consuming policy
instrument that extinguishes the effectiveness of voluntary actions,
harming rather than enhancing the evolution of a low carbon economy. 2.
With a cap and trade approach, the target is everything as both the emissions
cap and emissions floor are locked in. No one can do better than the cap,
and so the cap must be a science based all consuming sustainable target
pathway that won’t lock in failure. As we don’t yet have the widespread
political and economic preparedness to commit to an all consuming
sustainable target pathway (either nationally or internationally), the cap and
trade mechanism is the wrong approach and we should instead focus on a
carbon tax with complementary mechanisms that would transform the economy
more effectively than the [Australian] proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction
Scheme (CPRS).” [6].

7. Larry Lohmann (climate economist, The Corner House, London, UK); summary of
book “Carbon Trading”, by Larry Lohmann, editor, 2006 [implicit in the GHG pollution
cessation argument is taxing GHG pollution out of existence]: “The main cause
of global warming is rapidly increasing carbon dioxide emissions -- primarily
the result of burning fossil fuels. Some responses to the crisis, however, are
causing new and severe problems -- and may even increase global warming. This
seems to be the case with carbon trading -- the main current international
response to climate change and the centrepiece of the Kyoto Protocol. Carbon
trading has two parts. First, governments hand out free tradable rights to emit
carbon dioxide to big industrial polluters, allowing them to make money from
business as usual. Second, companies buy additional pollution credits from
projects in the South that claim to emit less greenhouse gas than they would
have without the investment. Most of the carbon credits being sold to
industrialized countries come from polluting projects, such as schemes that
burn methane from coal mines or waste dumps, which do little to wean the world
off fossil fuels. Tree plantations claimed to absorb carbon dioxide, in
addition, often drive people off their lands and destroy biological diversity
without resulting in progress toward alternative energy systems. This exhaustively-documented
but highly-readable book takes a broad look at the social, political and
environmental dimensions of carbon trading and investigates climate mitigation
alternatives. It provides a short history of carbon trading and discusses a number
of 'lessons unlearned'. Detailed case studies from ten Third World countries --
Guatemala, Ecuador, Uganda, Tanzania, Costa Rica, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand,
South Africa and Brazil -- expose the outcomes on the ground of various carbon
'offset' schemes. The book concludes that the 'carbon trading' approach to the
problem of rapid climate change is both ineffective and unjust. The bulk of
fossil fuels must be left in the ground if climate chaos is to be avoided.” [7].

8. Dr Robert J. Shapiro (Chair,
U.S. Climate Task Force and finance consultancy firm Sonecon; undersecretary
of commerce for economic affairs in the Clinton Administration), January 2009: “A
cap-and-trade
system is very unlikely to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions
— and more likely to introduce new, trillion-dollar risks for the
financial
system. The clearest illustration of the problems with cap-and-trade is
the
European Trading Scheme, based on the Kyoto
protocols covering most of Europe. According
to a new report by the Government Accountability Office, there’s little
if any
evidence that the ETS has had any effect at all on emissions in Europe.
One reason is that major emitters such as Germany simply
exempt many of their facilities generating greenhouse gases. Another
factor is
the “offset” permits that European “transition” economies, themselves
exempt
from caps, can sell to other ETS members. According to a recent study
in
Nature, once we set aside those offsets, emissions under the ETS have
actually
increased by 10 percent. The system also has failed to establish a
stable price
for carbon — a goal widely considered a prerequisite for any effective
climate
change effort. To the contrary, the prices for ETS permits are highly
volatile ... Volatility like the kind experienced in the ETS would
translate into
much more volatile energy prices, unsettling everyone’s markets and
undermining investment. And the volatile prices for the permits
themselves, traded on financial markets, would attract speculation and
new financial derivatives, putting us at risk for another crisis. Even
more regulations cannot eliminate most of cap-and-trade’s inherent
price volatility or the incentives for its participants, including
governments, to evade or manipulate the system. These are the main
reasons why the father of climate-change politics, Al Gore now prefers
carbon-based taxes over cap-and-trade. A carbon tax system would
apply a stable price to carbon, creating direct incentives to develop
and use less carbon-intensive fuels and more energy-efficient
technologies. President-elect Barack Obama is committed equally
to fighting climate change and restoring economic growth. The best way
to do both is to give up cap-and-trade and learn to love carbon-based
taxes." [8].

9. Dr Robert J. Shapiro (Chair,
U.S. Climate Task Force and finance consultancy firm Sonecon; undersecretary
of commerce for economic affairs in the Clinton Administration), March 2009: "The
proper approach here is a straightforward one. First,
enact a carbon-based tax to move people and firms to prefer and choose
less-carbon-intensive fuels and technologies. Second, as we change the
relative prices of different forms of energy based on their effects on
the climate, protect people’s incomes and the overall economy by
returning all or virtually all of the revenues through payroll tax cuts
or lump-sum payments to households. Third, use the certainty of a
substantial tax on carbon, along with additional subsidies, to promote
the development of new climate-friendly fuels and technologies that can
capture a new and fast-growing global market.I recently
co-authored a study that used the same modeling system as the
Department of Energy to estimate the environmental and economic
consequences of applying this specific approach. We found that we can
effectively address climate change without harming our economy ... And
after the carnage of Wall Street’s recent rounds of malfeasance,
it is painfully clear that the Securities and Exchange Commission and
the Justice Department simply lack the ability (and the resources) to
effectively police complex, fast-moving markets involving many, many
thousands or millions of trades per day. Despite its advocates’
good intentions, cap-and-trade could put America at risk of another
meltdown — one originally created and financed by the government
itself. None
of these painful and difficult issues arise with a carbon tax-shift.
Rather, it could enable us to effectively do our part in addressing
climate change, while protecting or even enhancing our economic
prospects. That’s a deal Congress cannot afford to pass up." [9].

10. Public Citizen (Public
Citizen is a US national, non-profit consumer advocacy organization founded in
1971 to represent consumer interests in Congress, the executive branch and the
courts), 27 June 2009: “Climate change
legislation that narrowly passed the House of Representatives late Friday
must be strengthened. The legislation will not solve our climate crisis but
will enrich already powerful oil, coal and nuclear power companies. President Obama
got it right when he announced in February his plan to impose strict new limits
on greenhouse gas emissions and require polluters to pay. But HR 2454 enshrines
a new legal right to pollute and gives away 85 percent of the credits to that
right to polluters.” [10].

11. Stephen Lendman (leading liberal US analyst and commentator), 8 July
2009: “On May 15, HR 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009
(ACESA) was introduced in the House purportedly "To create clean energy
jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition
to a clean energy economy." In fact, it's to let corporate polluters
reap huge windfall profits by charging consumers more for energy and fuel as
well as create a new bubble through carbon trading derivatives speculation. It
does nothing to address environmental issues, yet on June 26 the House narrowly
passed (229 - 212) and sent it to the Senate to be debated and voted on… Strong-arm
pressure, threats and bribes got the bill through the House. Forty-four
Democrats opposed it. Eight Republicans backed it. Over 1200 pages long, few if
any lawmakers read it… It contains enough loopholes to make its claimed
performance standards worthless, one of which prohibits the EPA from using the
Clean Air Act to regulate future greenhouse gas emissions. That alone means
they'll proliferate beyond what new technology reduces on its own, and only
then if it's profitable to do it… Overall, carbon trading is a scam, first
promoted in the 1980s under Reagan. Clinton
made it a key provision of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. He signed it in 1998, but
it was never ratified. As of February 2009, 183 nations did both, but
independent scientists call it "miserable failure" needing to be
scrapped and replaced by a meaningful alternative… Contributing $4,452,585 to
Democrats in 2008 (around $1 million to Obama) was mere pocket change for what
it can reap from scams like cap and trade disguised as an environmental plan.
The scheme was devised. GS [Goldman Sachs] helped write it. The House passed it
and sent it to the Senate. Unless stopped, it will transfer more of our wealth
to corporate polluters and Wall Street on top of all they've stolen so far from
derivatives fraud and the imploded housing and other bubbles. And Goldman will
lead the way finding new ways to do it until there's nothing left to extract.” [11].

12. Catherine Austin Fitts (US commentator), 1 July 2009: "If you think the housing and credit
bubble diminished your financial security and your community, or the bailouts,
or the rising gas prices did as well, hold on to your hat. The worst may be yet
to come. Carbon trading is gearing up to make the housing and derivatives
bubbles look like target practice. Here are some comments on H.R. 2454, the
American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009: “economic colonization of
the heartland”-Rep. Geoff Davis (R-Kentucky); “a scam” -Rep. Devin Nunes
(R-California); “massive transfer of wealth” -Rep. James Sensenbrenner
(R-Wisconsin); “Carbon markets can and will be manipulated using the same Wall
Street sleights of hand that brought us the financial crisis.” -Rep. Dennis
Kucinich (D-Ohio).” [12].

13. Greenpeace (leading global environment protection organization), 25 June
2009: “As it comes to the floor, the Waxman-Markey bill sets emission reduction
targets far lower than science demands, then undermines even those targets with
massive offsets. The giveaways and preferences in the bill will actually spur a
new generation of nuclear and coal-fired power plants to the detriment of real
energy solutions. To support such a bill is to abandon the real leadership that
is called for at this pivotal moment in history. We simply no longer have
the time for legislation this weak.” [13].

14. Kenneth Davidson (respected economics
columnist for “The Age” newspaper, Melbourne;
co-editor of “Dissent”), 2009: “The [Australian] Rudd Government's
environmental credentials are in tatters: the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme
has been exposed as sham. This shouldn't be surprising. There isn't one
cap-and-trade scheme in the world that has resulted in a reduction in carbon
emissions. Instead, such schemes have made money for the biggest polluters and
created a new branch of the derivatives industry that creates new wealth
opportunities for brokers and financiers. Rudd's cap and trade scheme benefits
the worst polluters. But the Australian scheme is special. It has been rorted
at the planning stage … The carbon scheme is not simply weak. It is fraudulent.
In his new Quarterly Essay: Quarry Vision, Coal, Climate Change and the End
of the Resources Boom, Guy Pearse shows that Australia's biggest emitters
will be able to meet their targets by buying emission permits from Indonesia
and Papua New Guinea in return for promises by these countries to reduce the
rate of deforestation ... opaque government built on unnecessary complexity,
like its close relative, secrecy, is a one-way street to corruption, especially
when the government faces an incompetent opposition. Carbon taxes were imposed
by Sweden, Finland, Netherlands,
Norway and Italy in the
1990s. Sweden
is the most successful country in the world in reducing its carbon footprint,
according to the German environmental group Germanwatch. Between 1990 and 2006 Sweden cut its emissions by 9 per cent,
exceeding the target set by Kyoto,
while at the same time real growth increased 44 per cent.” [14].

15. Guy Pearse (Australian climate and energy commentator):
“[Australian government commissioned economist]
Garnaut had recognized Indonesian and PNG rainforests as the perfect place to
hide greenhouse pollution on the cheap and avoid emission cuts in Australia. Annual
emissions from deforestation in these two countries alone were 3 times Australia’s total
emissions. Paying landholders not to log could effectively offset pollution in
Australia – and various estimates cited by Garnaut – from the Stern Report and
the World Bank – suggested the price might be US$1-3$ - perhaps less than 1/10th
of the price of a tonne of carbon otherwise … Having allowed Australia to outsource
all its emissions cuts [overseas], Rudd nationalized the cost with a
spectatcular money-go-round of compensation payments: to small businesses, householders,
and dozens of adjusted welfare payments. The ostensible aim was to help offset the
impact of emissions trading on energy costs – estimated at A$312 per household per
year [Australia
population 21 million]. The real was ensuring that in the flurry of cheques,
people couldn’t properly identify the winners and losers. “No-one gets a free
ride”, said the government. Their glossy PR material claimed that “under the
scheme, Australia’s biggest polluters
willpay for the pollution they generate”.
But, what the government carefully didn’t say was that the biggest polluters
would only pay for on average one tonne in every 5 tonnes of their pollution –
the rest of us paid for the other 4 tonnes.” [15].

16. Professor Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University; 2001 Economics Nobel
Laureate; former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank),
December 2007: “The only principle that has some ethical basis is equal
emission rights per capita (with some adjustments - for instance, the US has
already used up its share of the global atmosphere, so it should have fewer
emission allowances). But adopting this principle would entail such huge
payments from developed countries to developing countries, that, regrettably,
the former are unlikely to accept it. Economic efficiency requires that those
who generate emissions pay the cost, and the simplest way of forcing them to do
so is through a carbon tax. There could be an international agreement that
every country would impose a carbon tax at an agreed rate (reflecting the
global social cost). Indeed, it makes far more sense to tax bad things, like
pollution, than to tax good things like work and savings. Such a tax would
increase global efficiency. Of course, polluting industries like the
cap-and-trade system. While it provides them an incentive not to pollute,
emission allowances offset much of what they would have to pay under a tax
system. Some firms can even make money off the deal. Moreover, Europe has grown used to the concept of cap-and-trade,
and many are loathe to try an alternative. Yet, no one has proposed an
acceptable set of principles for assigning emission rights.” [16].

17. Professor James Hansen(top US
climate scientist; Head, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies; adjunct
professor, Columbia; University, New York, USA), February 2009: “The
essential step, then, is to phase out coal emissions over the next two decades.
And to declare off limits artificial high-carbon fuels such as tar sands and
shale while moving to phase out dependence on conventional petroleum as well. This
requires nothing less than an energy revolution based on efficiency and
carbon-free energy sources. Alas, we won't get there with the Waxman-Markey
bill, a monstrous absurdity hatched in Washington
after energetic insemination by special interests. For all its
"green" aura, Waxman-Markey locks in fossil fuel business-as-usual
and garlands it with a Ponzi-like "cap-and-trade" [ETS] scheme … There
is an alternative, of course, and that is a carbon fee, applied at the source
(mine or port of entry) that rises continually. I prefer the
"fee-and-dividend" version of this approach in which all revenues are
returned to the public on an equal, per capita basis, so those with
below-average carbon footprints come out ahead … The fact is that the climate
course set by Waxman-Markey is a disaster course. Their bill is an astoundingly
inefficient way to get a tiny reduction of emissions. It's less than worthless,
because it will delay by at least a decade starting on a path that is
fundamentally sound from the standpoints of both economics and climate
preservation”. [17].

18. Carbon
Tax Center
(US
organization demanding the pricing of carbon efficiently and equitably), 2009: “Why
revenue-neutral carbon taxes are essential,what's happening now, and how you can help.The Obama
Administration and the new Congress are being called upon to address 21st
Century climate realities.In a carbon-constrained world, a permanent and increasing
U.S.
carbon tax is essential to reduce the emissions that are
driving global warming. A carbon tax is a tax on the
carbon content of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas). A carbon tax is the most
economically efficient means to convey
crucial price signals and spur carbon-reducing investment and low-carbon
behavior. Our spreadsheet shows how fast
emissions will fall. Carbon taxes should be phased in so businesses and
households have time to adapt. A carbon tax should be revenue neutral: government can soften the impacts of added
costs by paying back the tax revenues ("dividends") or reducing other
taxes ("tax-shifting"). Support for a carbon tax is growing steadily
among public officials; economists; scientists; policy experts; business,
religious, and environmental leaders; and ordinary citizens (see: http://www.carbontax.org/who-supports/
)”. [18].

20. Richard
Denniss (executive director of the Australia Institute, Canberra, Australia),
18 February 2009: “Many
Australians have waited a long time for a government to do something about
climate change and no doubt some of them would be reluctant to see the CPRS [proposed
the Australian ETS] fail for that reason. However, most of these people are
unlikely to understand that the 5 per cent emissions reduction target is not a
step in the right direction but a legislative barrier to reducing emissions any
further. The CPRS [ETS] locks us into failure, in that it will prevent
emissions falling below the timid targets proposed by the Rudd Government. So,
where to from here? A simple way to get the ball rolling without locking in the
worst features of the CPRS {ETS] is to introduce a carbon levy of $25 a tonne.
This is the same price the Rudd Government expects to flow from its CPRS [ETS] and
it has already done the work figuring out how to provide compensation. An
important benefit of such an approach is that we don't need to start from
scratch. The administrative capacity required to collect a carbon levy is
consistent with that required to introduce the CPRS [ETS]. That is, both
systems require the monitoring of emission levels, the determination of
liability and the reconciliation of who has paid their carbon bills. The other
benefits of a carbon levy are its simplicity, its compatibility with simple
measures such as investment in household energy efficiency, and the fact we
don't have to set our targets until international agreement is reached in Copenhagen. Unlike the
CPRS [ETS] , a carbon levy would not discourage individual action.” [20].

21. Paul Taylor (Reuters economics columnist), 22 July 2009: "Cynics say the
French never saw a market they didn’t want to regulate, or an economic activity
they didn’t want to tax. Now this levy-happy nation, with one of the highest
fiscal burdens in the world, is eying a new target for taxation: carbon. And in
this case, they may just be right …Most experts agree that a carbon tax, based
on a global price for carbon, would be the simplest and most logical way to use
market forces to bring down greenhouse gas emissions. But it is not politically
feasible in most countries. The French,
with their Cartesian logic and their tradition of a strong, dirigiste state,
are among the few nations outside the Nordic area with the political will to
impose one. We can only hope that other countries will follow in their
slipstream." [21].

22. John Humphreys (Economist, Research
Fellow, Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney,
Australia), 2007: “With
growing public concern and constant calls for action on climate change, it is important
that we have a full debate about what is the best response. Many politicians
have rushed to support poor climate change policy. Our government is currently
using an approach of regulation and subsidy while considering the possibility of
implementing a carbon trading scheme. We would be better served if the
government replaced all of these options with a revenue-neutral carbon tax. A
carbon tax is preferable to a carbon trading system because it is more
efficient, effective, simple, flexible and transparent . More importantly, a
carbon tax has the added benefit of providing revenue that can be used to cut
other taxes. Indeed a revenue-neutral carbon tax may have little or no economic
cost.” [22].

23. ACT New Zealand Finance Spokesman Sir Roger Douglas (Father of Rogernomics”;
urging the Government and the Emissions
Trading Scheme Select Committee to read Centre of Independent Studies Report): "The report states, quite
rightly, that an ETS is the wrong approach and advocates a carbon tax – not as
the best option but, rather as the best option currently available. At least a
carbon tax would result in revenue for the Government, which can be used to
reduce company and personal income tax rates. Linking climate change policy to
tax cuts will ensure that it does not significantly damage the economy. The
report also outlines that agriculture should be excluded. Taxing agriculture
does little to facilitate a sustainable low-emission economy. A carbon tax
which excluded agriculture would still provide important incentives toward new
technology without harming the economy. If the Government feels it must be seen
to be addressing climate change, it must do so in a manner that causes the
least possible harm to New
Zealand’s economy and those who drive it –
especially our farmers and other primary producers." [23].

24. Dr Vandana
Shiva (Indian physicist, feminist, founder of eco-feminism, author of several
books and of hundreds of scientific and technical papers, and a very prominent environmental
analyst and activist): “The science of climate change is now clear, but
the politics is very muddy. Historically, the major polluters were the rich,
industrialised countries, so it made sense that they should pay the highest
price… Such [Carbon Trading ETS] schemes are more about privatising the
atmosphere than about preventing climate change; the emissions rights
established by the Kyoto Protocol are several times higher than the levels
needed to prevent a 2°C rise in global temperatures… Carbon trading uses the
resources of poorer people and poorer regions as "offsets" for richer
countries: it is between 50 and 200 times cheaper to plant trees in poor
countries to absorb CO2 than it is to reduce emissions at source. In other
words, the burden of "clean-up" falls on the poor… Thanks to
industrialisation, the rural poor in China
and India
are losing out on their land and livelihood. To count them as polluters is
doubly criminal. When global firms outsource to China
or India,
they need to be responsible for the pollution they carry overseas. Regulating
by carbon trading is like fiddling as Rome
burns… We face a stark choice: we can destroy the conditions for human life on
the planet by clinging to "free-market" fundamentalism, or we can
secure our future by bringing commerce within the laws of ecological
sustainability and social justice”. [24].

25. Dave Massen
(Convenor of the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) Stop Global Warming
Issue Organizing Team (IOT); active member in the Sierra Club’s San
Francisco Bay Chapter energy and climate committee) re PDA Stop Global Warming Issue Organizing Team support for Carbon Tax with
revenue recycling: “When we began the process, individual team members
supported several different mechanisms for reducing CO2. But in view of the
recent economic meltdown, we became concerned that even with some proposed new
regulations, a large market for trading carbon derivatives would also be
vulnerable to a collapse with global repercussions, especially since
hard-to-verify offsets are likely to be part of any trading scheme.
Additionally, it seemed that paying Wall Street traders would add unnecessarily
to the costs of reducing carbon.” [25].

"No issue is more of a threat to civilization than the accelerating menace of
catastrophic climate destabilization. To avert this disaster, we must
make a collective, long-term investment in a new energy infrastructure in order
to protect the welfare of future generations.

Focus group research shows that the
“…public has come to view clean energy as an immediate and long lasting
economic driver,…something that is vitally important to the health of our
economy.” Scientists call for urgent action: “Continued growth of
greenhouse gas emissions, for just another decade, practically eliminates the
possibility of near-term return of atmospheric composition beneath the tipping
level for catastrophic effects.”

PDA calls on the President and Congress to lead boldly in reducing our
country’s oil dependence and use of fossil fuels by investing in walkable,
bikeable communities, efficient public transportation, energy conservation
technologies and alternative energy development, which all create good-paying
and dependable jobs.

PDA supported 2008’s “climate principles letter” circulated in the House of
Representatives. To repeat and expand upon its goals, we agree that
climate/energy legislation should meet these criteria:

1. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a long-term trajectory that will avoid
the worst effects of global warming;

2. Transition the United States to an efficient, clean energy economy by
putting a price on carbon that will guide investment and personal decisions on
every level and lead the world with both incentives and example;

3. Recognize and minimize any adverse economic impacts from global warming
legislation and build political support for a price on carbon pollution by
“recycling” carbon pricing revenues directly to households; and

Can push America
toward an efficient, clean energy economy, and reduce greenhouse gas
emissions on a long-term trajectory, by providing a gradually-increasing
price on carbon pollution;

Can minimize adverse
economic impacts of legislation by “recycling” a substantial portion of
carbon revenue to households through a direct “carbon dividend” or a
payroll tax reduction;

Can provide revenue to aid
communities and ecosystems vulnerable to harm from global warming;

Reduces the need for
complex and difficult-to-verify regulations and cannot be gamed in a multi-trillion
dollar unregulated secondary energy trading market;

Eliminates offsets, which
are difficult to measure and substantiate;

With WTO-sanctioned border
tax adjustments would create immediate incentives for international
implementation, as all countries have a taxing mechanism in place but few
(if any) can manage a complex carbon trading system;

Can be set at levels to
form the basis for international cooperation and treaties to reduce
greenhouse gases to levels consistent with the findings of the IPCC; and

Would maintain the EPA’s
authority to regulate carbon emissions.". [26].

27. Dr Clive Spash (top Australian ecological economist at
CSIRO, former head of the
European Society for Ecological Economics, author of numerous scholarly
publications), 2009: "While carbon trading and offset schemes seem set to
spread, they so far appear ineffective in terms of actually reducing GHGs
(greenhouse gases). Despite this apparent failure, ETS [emission trading
schemes] remain politically popular amongst the industrialised polluters. The
public appearance is that action is being undertaken. The reality is that GHGs
are increasing and society is avoiding the need for substantive proposals to
address the problem of behavioural and structural change." [27].

28. Professor Tony Owen (international energy economist, University
College London), in arguing that most economists believe a carbon tax would
much more effectively reduce emissions than an Australian-style ETS: "Use
the tax very similar to a GST. You can give rebates at the border, so the
export industry doesn't suffer. The way this would work for the customer. If
they thought the carbon content was high, they would realise they were paying
fairly high tax component on the price of the good. Then they can modify their
consumption behaviour accordingly." [28].

29. Dr Richard Dennis
(excecutive director, Australia Institute) on Australian Treasury modelling indicating little impact
of the Australian ETS known as the CPRS (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme): “After
the 20 per cent renewable energy target is achieved in 2020 there is no further
reduction in the amount of electricity generated by black and brown coal-fired
power stations. This is because the CPRS has no effect on the competitiveness
of coal-fired power stations.The projected carbon price of around $20-$25 per
tonne is significantly less than the cost difference between renewable
electricity and coal-fired electricity. While the introduction of a carbon
price will reduce the profits of the coal-fired power stations, it will not
reduce the amount of electricity they generate…The CPRS is complex, expensive
and ineffective. The government's strategy is to suggest to voters that they
are taking significant action on climate change while simultaneously allowing
them to assure industry that they aren't really doing anything. It may or not
turn out to be a well-designed political tool, but as a policy tool it is an
enormous distraction." [29].

30. Kenneth Davidson (leading Australian economic commentator) re the proposed Rudd Labor Government Australian ETS known as the CPRS (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme): "Under the CPRS rules, they [the coal burning electricity generators] can buy unlimited supplies of cheap,
dodgy carbon offsets from Indonesia and PNG to avoid using any of their
free permits to actually produce electricity. In other words they will
be able to sell their free permits by simply replicating, with minor
variations, the multibillion-dollar rort by EU generators of the EU
carbon trading system since its establishment. The
flawed CPRS should be replaced with a broad-based carbon tax. If it was
set initially at $10 a tonne it would be hardly noticed, it would raise
$5 billion a year and all the money could be spent on green
infrastructure instead of the financial bubble if the CPRS goes ahead." [30].31. Dr
James Hansen (top US
climate scientist, head, NASA’s Goddard Insitute for Space Studies) in answer to
the question “Is there any real chance of averting the climate crisis?”: “Absolutely.
It is possible [to avert climate crisis] – if we give politicians a cold, hard
slap in the face. The fraudulence of the Copenhagen
approach – "goals" for emission reductions, "offsets" that
render ironclad goals almost meaningless, the ineffectual
"cap-and-trade" mechanism – must be exposed. We must rebel against
such politics as usual. Science reveals that climate is close to tipping
points. It is a dead certainty that continued high emissions will create a
chaotic dynamic situation for young people, with deteriorating climate
conditions out of their control. Science also reveals what is needed to
stabilise atmospheric composition and climate… Cap and trade with offsets, in
contrast, is astoundingly ineffective. Global emissions rose rapidly in
response to Kyoto,
as expected, because fossil fuels remained the cheapest energy. Cap and trade
is an inefficient compromise, paying off numerous special interests. It must
be replaced with an honest approach, raising the price of carbon emissions and
leaving the dirtiest fossil fuels in the ground. Are we going to stand up and
give global politicians a hard slap in the face, to make them face the truth?
It will take a lot of us – probably in the streets. Or are we going to let them
continue to kid themselves and us and cheat our children and grandchildren?
Intergenerational inequity is a moral issue. Just as when Abraham Lincoln
faced slavery and when Winston Churchill faced Nazism, the time for compromises
and half-measures is over. Can we find a leader who understands the core issue
and will lead?” [31].

32. Dr James Lovelock FRS (in
response to the New Scientist interviewer question “Your work on atmospheric
chlorofluorocarbons led eventually to a global CFC ban that saved us from
ozone-layer depletion. Do we have time to do a similar thing with carbon
emissions to save ourselves from climate change?”) (January 2009): “Not a
hope in hell. Most of the "green" stuff is verging on a gigantic
scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance
and industry wanted. It's not going to do a damn thing about climate change,
but it'll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of
reckoning.” [32].

33. Dr Vandana Shiva (physicist and
ecofeminist) (2007): " Kyoto totally avoided the material challenge of
stopping activities that lead to higher emissions and the political challenge
of regulation of the polluters and making the polluters pay in accordance with
principles adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio. Instead, Kyoto put in place the mechanism of emissions
trading which in effect rewarded the polluters by assigning them rights to the
atmosphere and trading in these rights to pollute. Today, the emissions trading
market has reached $ 30 billion and is expected to go up to $ 1 trillion.
Carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase, while profits from "hot
air" also increase. I call it "hot air" both because it is
literally hot air leading to global warming and because it is metaphorically
hot air, based on the fictitious economy of finance which has overtaken the
real economy, both in size and in our perception. A casino economy has allowed
corporations and their owners to multiply their wealth without limit, and
without any relationship to the real world. Yet this hungry money then seeks to
own the real resources of people - the land and the forests, the farms and the
food, and turn them into cash. Unless we return to the real world, we will not
find the solutions that will help mitigate climate change. Another false
solution to climate change is the promotion of biofuels based on corn and soya,
palmoil and jatropha.” [33].

34. Professor Joseph Stiglitz
(Columbia
University, New York, author of “Globalization and Its Discontents”.
He received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for research on the economics
of information. Most recently, he co-authored with Professor Linda Bilmes, Harvard. “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The
True Costs of the Iraq Conflict”) : “Pretty
speeches can take you only so far. A month after the Copenhagen climate conference, it is clear
that the world’s leaders were unable to translate rhetoric about global warming
into action. It was, of course, nice that world leaders could agree that it
would be bad to risk the devastation that could be wrought by an increase in
global temperatures of more than two degrees Celsius. At least they paid some
attention to the mounting scientific evidence…

The failure of Copenhagen
was not the absence of a legally binding agreement. The real failure was that
there was no agreement about how to achieve the lofty goal of saving the
planet, no agreement about reductions in carbon emissions, no agreement on how
to share the burden, and no agreement on help for developing countries…

The consequences of the failure are already apparent: The price
of emission rights in the European Union Emission Trading System has fallen,
which means that firms will have less incentive to reduce emissions now and
less incentive to invest in innovations that will reduce emissions in the
future. Firms that wanted to do the right thing, to spend the money to reduce
their emissions, now worry that doing so would put them at a competitive
disadvantage as others continue to emit without restraint. European firms will
continue to be at a competitive disadvantage relative to American firms, which
bear no cost for their emissions…

Clearly, the idea that those who emitted more in the past
should get more emission rights for the future is unacceptable. The “minimally”
fair allocation to the developing countries requires equal emission rights per
capita…

Perhaps it is time to
try another approach: a commitment by each country to raise the price of
emissions (whether through a carbon tax or emissions caps) to an agreed level,
say, $80 per ton. Countries could use the revenues as an alternative to other
taxes -- it makes much more sense to tax bad things than good things… A system
of border taxes -- imposed on imports from countries where firms do not have to
pay appropriately for carbon emissions -- would level the playing field and
provide economic and political incentives for countries to adopt a carbon tax
or emission caps. That, in turn, would provide economic incentives for firms to
reduce their emissions.” [34].

35. Dr Hansen, NASA (2010): "Cap and trade
with offsets, in
contrast, is astoundingly ineffective. Global emissions rose rapidly in
response to Kyoto, as expected, because fossil fuels remained the
cheapest energy.

Cap and trade is an inefficient
compromise, paying off numerous special interests. It must be replaced
with an honest approach, raising the price of carbon emissions and
leaving the dirtiest fossil fuels in the ground.

Are we going to stand up and give
global politicians a hard slap in the face, to make them face the truth?
It will take a lot of us – probably in the streets. Or are we going to
let them continue to kid themselves and us and cheat our children and
grandchildren?

Intergenerational inequity is a
moral issue." [35].

36. .
Dr James Lovelock FRS, eminent UK
climate scientist famous for atmospheric monitoring technology and the
Gaia
Hypothesis, commenting carbon
trading (23 January 2009): “Most of the
"green" stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just
what finance and industry wanted. It's not going to do a damn thing
about
climate change, but it'll make a lot of money for a lot of people and
postpone
the moment of reckoning.” [36].

37. Dr
Cameron Hepburn, Fellow, Oxford University, UK 2010): “ And by and large, the
economists who’ve looked at the kind of science and pulled it all together say,
and here’s the big answer, it’s what you’ve been waiting for, the marginal damage
curve we think of climate change is fairly flat, relatively flat and so a
carbon tax is the most efficient answer. “ [37].

38. John Daley & Tristan
Edis, Grattan Institute (economics think-tank involving links with Melbourne University,
the Victorian Government, and corporate Australia), April 2010 , “Restructuring the Australian economy to emit less carbon – a
Grattan report”: “Like much of the world, Australia has debated putting a
price on carbon emissions (a “carbon price”) with an emissions trading scheme
or tax. A carbon price aims to induce structural change in the economy that
will reduce emissions and consequently the risks of global warming. The
Australian debate has been dominated by concerns that Australia might
lose industry and jobs offshore if it has a carbon price when competitor
countries do not. If Australian production moves to countries with higher
emissions, this would defeat the purpose of carbon pricing. To avoid this
possibility, and protect industry from such an event, government plans to
provide some industries with free carbon permits. The report is a detailed
industry by industry analysis of the impact of carbon pricing. We find that
much of the protection proposed for the major emissions-intensive industries is
unnecessary or poorly targeted. It would delay the structural adjustment
required to move to a lower carbon economy. Using industry data, the report
finds that many of the recipient companies will be internationally competitive
even if they receive no free permits. Many of the industries that would not be
competitive would emit less carbon if they moved offshore, which is the purpose
of carbon pricing. The proposed free permits will mute the incentives to reduce
carbon emissions. They are also very expensive for other Australian taxpayers.”
[38].

39. Steve Stoft and Dan Kirshner (Steve Stoft is an economist and Dan
Kirshner an analyst, both in Berkeley CA. Stoft’s new book (with which Kirshner
assisted) is Carbonomics: How to Fix the Climate and Charge It to OPEC; available
on Amazon, and downloaded free from http://www.stoft.com.): “OK, we’re agreed: the
revenues from carbon pricing—whether from cap and trade or from a carbon
tax—should be returned, not kept by the government. It’s good politics—t-a-x is
a four-letter word—and it’s good government—we don’t need to entice special
interests with more revenue. Once that’s settled, however, a new issue arises:
how should the revenues be returned? Renowned climate scientist James Hansen
advocates a 100 percent dividend—a check to your mailbox. Al Gore favors
reducing the payroll tax. Economists will tell you it’s more efficient to
reduce an existing tax; that’s their preference. We’re here to tell you that
they’re wrong. In fact, they’ll prefer a 100 percent dividend once they think
about it for a moment. It is good news to find that a dividend is good
economics in addition to what we already knew: that a dividend is good politics…
We can use the universal rejection of a capitation tax as unfair to prove to
economists that they prefer dividends. In fact, pricing carbon plus dividend
refunds meets the economists’ gold standard of fairness: it’s equivalent to
giving everyone their own “atmospheric climate right,” which they are free to sell….
Bottom line: a dividend is good politics and good economics. However carbon
pricing is implemented—cap and trade or carbon tax—let’s go for the gold: 100
percent dividend refunds.” [39].

40. Carbon
Tax Center,
demolishing the ETS myth: “Myth #7. A carbon
cap-and-trade system is as good as a carbon tax, and is far more politically
feasible.Who says? Many “Big Green” groups, business organizations and
corporations seeking a less transparent way to put a price on a carbon. Click
here
for CTC’s dissection of the logistical and strategic differences between carbon
taxes and cap-and-trade (they’re not minor). As for political feasibility, the
landscape has changed radically in the few years since some prominent
environmental lobby groups threw in their lot with cap-and-trade. Public
concern over climate is at critical mass, complex financial instruments have
been discredited, and the rise of populist sentiment is making the notion of
“revenue return” politically appealing. Congress is starting to take carbon tax
proposals seriously. Acceding to cap-and-trade may have seemed necessary
several years ago, but it now looks to be a case of setting the bar too low, as
well as an idea whose time has passed.” [40].

41. Carbon Tax Center, compendium of scientist and economist critics of Cap-and-Trade ETS: “Scientists
and Economists. This page, featuring Scientists and Economists,
is one of half-a-dozen compiling expressions of support for carbon taxes (or
more targeted taxes, e.g., on gasoline) by notable individuals and
organizations. Use Navigation Bar at top of page to access other pages.” [41]

42. Ian Dunlop (a CPD Fellow, a contributing author to the CPD book, More than Luck: Ideas Australia Needs Now
and chaired the AGO Experts Group on Emissions Trading from 1998 to 2000)
, “Demolishing myths on emissions trading” (2010): “One of the great myths
being perpetuated in this election campaign is that the Greens, by refusing to
support the Government's CPRS (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme), prevented
the introduction of effective emissions trading in this country, thus blocking
serious action on climate change. Penny Wong was at it again on ABC's Q&A
on Monday
night. Utter nonsense! The CPRS is appalling policy. By weakening the
underlying emissions trading mechanism with multiple escape clauses and
compensation, it runs counter to all the recommendations of the sound policy
design work that had been carried out in Australia, ranging from the AGO 1998
National Emissions Trading framework to the 2008 Garnaut Review, as well as
practical overseas experience…Turnbull deserves credit for standing up to the
climate luddites in the Coalition, but he is still not prepared to honestly
acknowledge the nonsense which the CPRS represents and, more importantly, the
size of the problem we now face. The only political party to do so are the
Greens… Put bluntly, we face a global climate change emergency, which requires
an emergency response; both major parties are well aware of this from their
scientific briefings. In this context, the emission reduction target of 5 per
cent by 2020, which they are so graciously offering is derisory. The only
possible conclusion is that both parties do not believe in human-induced
climate change and are going through the motions purely to placate the
electorate. I, for one, object in the strongest possible terms to the future of
my children and grandchildren being thrown away by such irresponsibility from
those who would profess to be our "leaders". Christine Milne is quite
right to hold out for serious climate change policy rather than this
"Clayton's" variety offered by the major parties' deniers.” [42].

43. Prins, Gwyn and Galiana, Isabel and
Green, Christopher and Grundmann,
Reiner and Korhola, Atte and Laird, Frank and Nordhaus, Ted
and Pielke Jnr, Roger and Rayner,
Steve and Sarewitz, Daniel and Shellenberger, Michael and Stehr,
Nico and Tezuko, Hiroyuki (2010) “The Hartwell Paper: a new
direction for climate policy after the crash of 2009”,Institute for Science, Innovation &
Society, University of Oxford; LSE Mackinder Programme, London School of
Economics and Political Science, London, UK: “Climate policy, as it has been understood and practised by many governments
of the world under the Kyoto Protocol approach, has failed to produce any
discernible real world reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases in 15 years.
The underlying reason for this is that the UNFCCC/Kyoto model [Carbon Trading] was
structurally flawed and doomed to fail because it systematically misunderstood
the nature of climate change as a policy issue between 1985 and 2009…But above
all, it emphasizes the primacy if accelerating decarbonisation of energy
supply. This calls for very substantially increased investment in innovation in
non-carbon energy sources in order to diversify energy supply technologies. The
ultimate goal of doing this is to develop non-carbon energy supplies at unsubsidized
costs less than those using fossil fuels. The Hartwell Paper advocates funding this
work by low hypothecated (dedicated) carbon taxes. It opens discussion on how
to channel such money productively. To reframe the climate issue around matters
of human dignity is not just noble or necessary. It is also likely to be more
effective than the approach of framing around human sinfulness – which has failed
and will continue to fail. The Hartwell Paper follows the advice that a good
crisis should not be wasted.” [43].

44. Steve Rayner ( a professor at Oxford
University and a member of
the eminent and international HartwellGroup) (2010): "I think we have been over-enamored of the
economists' argument that if we get the right price, the problem will fix
itself. The notion that we can force up the price of carbon-based fuels and
thus facilitate a move away from them is not taking adequate account to the
political resistance from rising energy costs." [44].

45. Gwyn Prins (Research Professor at the London
School of Economics & Political Science and a member of the eminent and
international HartwellGroup) (2011):“It is now plain that something has gone badly
awry with the European Union’s policies and views on the issue of climate
change. Plain to any observer, it seems, other than the EU Commissioner for
Climate Action Connie Hedegaard, and her colleagues inside the shiny towers of
the Brussels quartier
européen. They continue to assert in a triumph of hope over experience
that it will all come good with more of the same polices that have just failed.
The EU Emissions Trading Scheme and associated promotion of so-called “cap and
trade” carbon trading has crashed and is burning. The carbon price had already
crashed twice before the present time. That isn’t to say that nothing is
happening: much is. A false market in the non-emission of carbon has been
created by fiat and is having a dampening effect on already fragile EU economic
recovery. But it is fertilising a luxuriant undergrowth of consultants and
‘carbon traders’, rather in the way that speculators in other classic ‘bubble’
markets have been enriched in the past… To reframe the climate issue around
matters of human dignity and political pragmatism is not just noble and
necessary. It is also likely to be more effective than the approach of framing
around human sinfulness—which has failed. Securing access to low-cost energy
for all, including the very poor, is truly and literally liberating. Building
resilience to surprise and to extremes of weather is a practical expression of
true global solidarity. Improving the quality of the air that people breathe is
an undeniable public good. Significant public investment in direct
decarbonisation of the global energy system is the most ambitious goal but is,
in the Hartwellite view, only likely to be attained by an indirect approach.
The good news is that there are good reasons to believe that such a radically
reframed policy can work where the current EU policies have failed. But that
depends entirely upon accepting that this is the case. So my plea to Ms
Hedegaard and her colleagues is the same that Oliver Cromwell made to the
Church of Scotland in 1650. “I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it
possible you may be mistaken.” [45].

46. William Nordhaus
(Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University) (2010): “The
present study examines alternative outcomes for emissions, climate change, and
damages under different policy scenarios. It uses an updated version of the
regional integrated model of climate and the economy (RICE model). Recent
projections suggest that substantial future warming will occur if no abatement
policies are implemented. The model also calculates the path of carbon prices
necessary to keep the increase in global mean temperature to 2 °C or less in an
efficient manner. The carbon price for 2010 associated with that goal is
estimated to be $59 per ton (at 2005 prices), compared with an effective global
average price today of around $5 per ton. However, it is unlikely that the Copenhagen temperature goal will be attained even if
countries meet their ambitious stated objectives under the Copenhagen Accord…. A final difficulty arises
because the Kyoto and Copenhagen regimes have adopted a
cap-and-trade structure. These have the theoretical advantage that they can
coordinate emissions reductions across countries in an efficient manner. However,
these theoretical advantages have proved illusory to date. Analysts who have
examined the actual functioning of similar quantitative restrictions in
different sectors note many difficulties with cap-and-trade that are not fully
appreciated in the scientific community (33, 34). Economists often point to
harmonized carbon taxes as a more efficient and attractive regime, but these
have been generally shunned in negotiations, particularly in the United States,
because of the taboo on considering tax-based systems (35).”. [46].

47.Dr Chris
Hope (Judge Business School, University of Cambridge) (2011): “If the best
current scientific and economic evidence is to be believed, and climate change could
be a real and serious problem, the appropriate response is to institute today a climate change tax equal to the mean
estimate of the damage caused by a tonne of CO2. emissions. The raw calculations
from the default PASGE09 model suggest that tax should be about $100 per tonne
of CO2 in the EU. But correcting for the limited time horizon of the model, and
bringing the calculations forward to 2102, in year 2012 dollars, brigs the
suggested tax up to about $150 per tonne of CO2.” [47].

48. Dr James Hansen et al (2013): “Thus our objective is to define what the
science indicates is needed, not to assess political feasibility. Further, it
is not obvious to us that there are physical or economic limitations that
prohibit fossil fuel emission targets far lower than 1000 GtC, even targets
closer to 500 GtC. Indeed, we suggest that rapid transition off fossil fuels
would have numerous near-term and long-term social benefits, including improved
human health and outstanding potential for job creation. A world summit on climate change will be held
at United Nations Headquarters in September 2014 as a preliminary to
negotiation of a new climate treaty in Paris
in late 2015. If this treaty is analogous to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol [257],
based on national targets for emission reductions and
cap-and-trade-with-offsets emissions trading mechanisms, climate deterioration
and gross intergenerational injustice will be practically guaranteed. The
palpable danger that such an approach is conceivable is suggested by
examination of proposed climate policies of even the most forward-looking of
nations. Norway, which along with the other Scandinavian countries has been
among the most ambitious and successful of all nations in reducing its
emissions, nevertheless approves expanded oil drilling in the Arctic and
development of tar sands as a majority owner of Statoil [258]–[259].
Emissions foreseen by the Energy Perspectives of Statoil [259],
if they occur, would approach or exceed 1000 GtC and cause dramatic climate
change that would run out of control of future generations. If, in contrast,
leading nations agree in 2015 to have internal rising fees on carbon with
border duties on products from nations without a carbon fee, a foundation would
be established for phaseover to carbon free energies and stable climate.” [48].

"EMMA ALBERICI: The Australian Government now wants to move
earlier to an emissions trading scheme linked to the European system. What do
you think of that?

CHRIS HOPE: Yes. I think that the scheme that Australia
has at the moment of a carbon tax is far better than an emissions trading
scheme, particularly when you see the problems that there are with the
emissions trading scheme in Europe at the
moment. The price of the permits in Europe has
fallen to below five euros, certainly below 10 Australian-US dollars per tonne.
It's at a much lower level than anybody who designed the scheme was thinking it
would be at and politicians and policymakers in Europe
are making desperate attempts to try and adjust the scheme in a way that will
increase the price. Because if we want to have sensible and serious action on
climate change, then we need a price on carbon dioxide emissions that is
significantly higher than $10 per tonne of carbon dioxide.

EMMA ALBERICI: Is price the only flaw in the European system?

CHRIS HOPE: There are many ways in which a carbon tax is better than an
emissions trading system. For instance, one obvious one is that if you have a
carbon tax then everybody who is trying to make decisions knows what the price
is and they can have some certainty in the planning that they're doing. And as
we've seen with the European emissions trading scheme, that's a certainty that
you don't have if you have a cap and trade system. The price can go all over
the place. And what that means is that people can't plan effectively, they
can't change the types of electricity generation that they have, they can't put
in place infrastructure that might take years or decades to be fully put in
place. And therefore we've seen things like in the UK,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer has now put in place a carbon floor price which
means that the price of emissions of CO2 in the UK is £16 per tonne whatever the
European emissions trading scheme price goes down at. So, US$25 or so per
tonne, roughly the sort of levels that you're seeing in Australia at
the moment.

EMMA ALBERICI: But specifically on the reason it was initially conceived, has
the EU system actually worked, eight years after it was launched? Has it
managed to reduce carbon emissions in the European region?

CHRIS HOPE: It's very hard to say because it's very hard to work out what the
emissions would've been without the emissions trading scheme, because as you
know, we've been through in Europe quite a severe recession as a result of the
financial crisis of 2007 onwards and so it's very hard to see what the
emissions would've been. But I think most people would say that it has been
nowhere near as successful at reducing emissions as we would've hoped it would
be and as a sensible carbon tax at a sensible level of maybe $100 per tonne of
carbon dioxide would be.?" [49].

[50]. Dr Irvin Tucker (a
longtime member of the US National Council on Economic Education and former
Director of the Center for Economic Education at the University of North
Carolina at Charlotte) (2012): “But there is increasing questioning of whether
or not carbon trading is preferable to a tax on carbon. One contributing argument
is the European experience to date, which has been disappointing. By mid-2006, the price of contracts had collapsed to 8
euros. The primary fact was that
numerous national governments had issued enough permits that covered producers
did not find it necessary to buy permits. In fact, carbon emissions increased in
many countries in the first year of the carbon trading regime. Since that time,
there have been reforms in the trading system, and prices have risen. Nevertheless,
the possibility that an emissions trading system might not reduce carbon emissions
has given impetus to those who argue for a carbon tax. For those who prefer the
tax approach, perhaps the most widespread reason is that the tax will raise revenue.” [50].

51. Professor Joseph Stiglitz (a
Nobel laureate in economics and University Professor at 101-Nobel-Laureate Columbia
University, and formerly Chairman of President Bill Clinton’s Council of
Economic Advisers and Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World
Bank) (2010): “Underlying the failure in Copenhagen are some deep problems.
The Kyoto
approach allocated emission rights, which are a valuable asset. If emissions
were appropriately restricted, the value of emission rights would be a couple
trillion dollars a year – no wonder that there is a squabble over who should
get them. Clearly, the idea that those
who emitted more in the past should get more emission rights for the
future is unacceptable. The “minimally” fair allocation to the developing
countries requires equal emission rights per capita. Most ethical principles
would suggest that, if one is distributing what amounts to “money” around the
world, one should give more (per capita) to the poor. So, too, most ethical
principles would suggest that those that have polluted more in the past
– especially after the problem was recognized in 1992 – should have less
right to pollute in the future. But such an allocation would implicitly
transfer hundreds of billions of dollars from rich to poor. Given the
difficulty of coming up with even $10 billion a year – let alone the $200
billion a year that is needed for mitigation and adaptation – it is wishful
thinking to expect an agreement along these lines. Perhaps it is time to try
another approach: a commitment by each country to raise the price of emissions
(whether through a carbon tax or emissions caps) to an agreed level, say, $80
per ton. Countries could use the revenues as an alternative to other taxes – it
makes much more sense to tax bad things than good things. Developed countries
could use some of the revenues generated to fulfill their obligations to help
the developing countries in terms of adaptation and to compensate them for
maintaining forests, which provide a global public good through carbon
sequestration.” [51].

[52].Professor Joseph Stiglitz (a Nobel laureate
in economics and University Professor at 101-Nobel-Laureate Columbia
University, and formerly Chairman of President Bill Clinton’s Council of
Economic Advisers and Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World
Bank) (2010): “Economic efficiency requires that those who generate
emissions pay the cost, and the simplest way of forcing them to do so is
through a carbon tax. There could be an international agreement that every
country would impose a carbon tax at an agreed rate (reflecting the global
social cost). Indeed, it makes far more sense to tax bad things, like
pollution, than to tax good things like work and savings. Such a tax would
increase global efficiency.Of course, polluting industries like the
cap-and-trade system. While it provides them an incentive not to pollute,
emission allowances offset much of what they would have to pay under a tax
system. Some firms can even make money off the deal. Moreover, Europe has grown used to the concept of cap-and-trade,
and many are loathe to try an alternative. Yet, no one has proposed an
acceptable set of principles for assigning emission rights.” [52].

[53]. Professor Joseph Stiglitz (a
Nobel laureate in economics and University Professor at 101-Nobel-Laureate Columbia
University, and formerly Chairman of President Bill Clinton’s Council of
Economic Advisers and Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World
Bank) (2010): “There is a way out, and that is through a common (global)
environmental tax on emissions. Alternatively, each country could keep its
own revenues and use them to replace taxes on capital and labor: it makes much
more sense to tax “bads” (pollution, like greenhouse gas emissions) than to tax
“goods,” like work and saving.” [53].

[54]. Bernard Rooney (climate change
activist) (2010): “Putting
a price on carbon is ''a no brainer'' and should be the first priority of any
government, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says.''I'm an
advocate of carbon tax, because the general principle is that it's better to
tax bad things than good things,'' he told a capacity crowd at the Australian National University's
Llewellyn Hall yesterday afternoon, drawing a loud burst of enthusiastic
applause.''We don't know exactly what the right price of carbon is some say
around $US60 to $80 ($A66 to $A88) a tonne, but what we do know is that zero is
the wrong price ''. Stiglitz thus joins what appears to be a majority of
economists from all schools who advocate the carbon tax over 'carbon trading'. In theory, 'carbon trading' would work, if the
licenses were auctioned on an annual basis, but then if it is so like a carbon
tax, why bother? In my view, 'carbon trading' is designed to fail. It's
designed to make money for Wall st traders and to allow corporate-dominated
governments to giveaway 'permits to pollute' to the big polluters. An obvious
and inevitable line of attack against the carbon tax is the 'great big new tax'
and 'raise the cost of standard of living' arguments. To counter this purely at
the political level a carbon dividend should be proposed. Either 50% or even
100% of the revenue raised from a carbon tax should be returned to each citizen
on a per capita basis as compensation for increased energy costs. Or 50% of the revenue could be invested in the
building out of the new clean energy infrastructure. This would be a genuine
'nation building' project, not the farcical and murderous wedding-bombing
operation in Afghanistan.” [54].

[55].Professor
Joseph Stiglitz (a Nobel laureate in economics and University Professor at 101-Nobel-Laureate
Columbia University, and formerly Chairman of President Bill Clinton’s Council
of Economic Advisers and Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World
Bank) (2010) giving the Crawford School Oratory at the Australian National
University (2010): “I'm an advocate of carbon tax, because the general
principle is that it's better to tax bad things than good things. We don't know
exactly what the right price of carbon is some say around $US60 to $80 ($A66 to
$A88) a tonne, but what we do know is that zero is the wrong price '' [54, 55].

[56]. Dr Gideon Polya (biological chemist, climate change activist and convenor of 300.org that demands an urgent return of atmospheric CO2 to a safe 300 ppm CO2 from
the present dangerous and damaging 400 ppm CO2) (2014): "Science-informed people welcome coal miner and major greenhouse gas (GHG)
polluter Clive Palmer's intervention to save the Australian Climate Change
Authority (CCA), the Renewable Energy Target (RET) and the Clean Energy Finance
Corporation (CEFC) but this has NOT "reframed the debate about carbon
pricing" in pro-coal, pro-gas, pro-pollution Australia that is a world
leader in GHG pollution. Thus Clive Palmer has rejected the Carbon Tax and
opted for a Carbon Trading-based ETS to be implemented when half a dozen major
players in America, Europe
and East Asia do likewise. However numerous
economists, activists, scientists and climate scientists argue that what is
needed is a transparent, science-based Carbon Tax rather than an ineffective
and fraudulent ETS. The Carbon Trading ETS approach is variously condemned as
dodgy because it is empirically ineffective, accordingly counterproductive and
is inherently fraudulent because it would involve particular rich countries
selling licences to enable corporations to pollute the one common atmosphere
and ocean of all countries and all peoples (for 56 such expert opinions c/- of 300.org that demands an urgent return of atmospheric CO2 to a safe 300 ppm CO2 from
the present dangerous and damaging 400 ppm CO2, Google “carbon tax needed NOT
carbon trading”)." [56].

[57]. Adela Putinelu (an MA student
in International Development: Politics and Governance at the University of Manchester)
(2012):“Climate change has been described as the greatest
collective action problem the world has ever faced (Barrett 2008: 257). In the
search for regulatory solutions which would mitigate the effects of global
warming, emissions trading has become the most favoured policy instrument.
If we are to envisage a more sustainable future and a transition away from
today’s fossil-fuelled economies, it is imperative that we seek to understand
the EU emissions market in terms of its aims, and propose ways to overcome its
current failures... Does it work? Intense corporate lobbying against
governments’ favoured idea of a carbon tax and the desire of the EU to fill a
power vacuum after the US withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 saw the EU
making a U-turn and adopting a cap-and-trade policy. Subsequently, the EU
enjoyed a leading role in climate change negotiations while its proposed
emissions trading scheme increasingly attracted attention as a model for a
global cap-and-trade system. But concerns about the practical implementation
and effectiveness of the current scheme, the failure of the US (the world’s
largest per capita emitter of GHG) to establish a national cap-and-trade
programme and the fundamental ethical critique of the legitimacy of carbon
commodification indicate that the future of emissions trading is far from
certain (Perdan and Azapagic 2011: 6052-6053). With little incentive for
investing in clean technologies, a timely transition away from fossil fuels
seems unlikely. With the market-based policy tool of emissions trading
preferred on grounds of economic efficiency (although this is subject to
debate), environmental policy will not address the challenge of behavioural
change while the goal remains to seek new investment and financial opportunities
(packed in green discourse and delivered to the public in the form of
pro-growth strategies). Structural deficiencies in the EU ETS cannot be
understood as part of an institutional learning process so long as the EU
policymakers remain unwilling to learn from its failures.” [57].

[58]. N. Gregory Mankiw (a professor
of economics at Harvard and a former adviser to President George W. Bush) (2013):
“summer, the Obama administration released the President’s Climate Action Plan.
It is a grab bag of regulations and policy initiatives aimed at reducing the
nation’s carbon emissions, which many scientists believe contribute to global
warming… Economists call the effects of our personal decisions on others
“externalities”… Fortunately, a policy
broader in scope is possible, which brings us to the third approach to dealing
with climate externalities: putting a price on carbon emissions. If the
government charged a fee for each emission of carbon, that fee would be built into
the prices of products and lifestyles. When making everyday decisions, people
would naturally look at the prices they face and, in effect, take into account
the global impact of their choices. In economics jargon, a price on carbon
would induce people to “internalize the externality”… Among economists, the issue is largely a
no-brainer. In December 2011, the IGM Forum asked a panel of 41 prominent
economists about this statement: “A tax on the carbon content of fuels would be
a less expensive way to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions than would a collection
of policies such as ‘corporate average fuel economy’ requirements for automobiles.”
Ninety percent of the panelists agreed. Could
such an overwhelming consensus of economists be wrong? Well, actually, yes. But
in this case, I am confident that the economics profession has it right. The
hard part is persuading the public and the politicians.” [58].

[59]. S. Rausch and
J.M. Reilly (economists from 83-Nobel-Laureate MIT) (2012): “Bush-era tax
cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of 2012, leading to interest in raising
revenue through a carbon tax. This revenue could be used to either cut other
taxes or to avoid cuts in Federal programs. There is a body of economic research
suggesting that such an arrangement could be a win-win-win situation. The first
win—Congress could reduce personal or corporate income tax rates, extend the
payroll tax cut, maintain spending on social programs, or some combination of
these options. The second win—these cuts in income taxes would spur the
economy, encouraging more private spending and hence more employment and
investment. The third win—carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution and oil imports would
be reduced. This analysis uses the MIT U.S. Regional Energy Policy (USREP)
model to evaluate the effect of a carbon tax as part of a Federal budget deal.
A baseline scenario where temporary payroll cuts and the Bush tax cuts are
allowed to expire is compared to several scenarios that include a carbon tax
starting at $20 per ton in 2013 and rising at 4%. We find that, whether revenue
is used to cut taxes or to maintain spending for social programs, the economy
is better off with the carbon tax than if taxes remain high to maintain Federal
revenue. We also find that, in addition to economic benefits, a carbon tax
reduces carbon dioxide emissions to 14% below 2006 levels by 2020, and 20%
below by 2050. Oil imports remain at about today’s level, and compared to the
case with no carbon tax, are 10 million barrels per day less in 2050. The
carbon tax would shift the market toward renewables and other low carbon
options, and make the purchase of more fuel-efficient vehicles more
economically desirable”. [59].

[60]. William G. Gale (the Arjay and
Frances Miller Chair in Federal Economic Policy in the Economic Studies Program
at Brookings, an expert on tax policy, fiscal issues, pensions, and saving behaviour,
co-director of the Tax Policy Center and
director of the Retirement Security Project) , Samuel Brown and Fernando Saltiel
(2013): “there is too much consumption and production of fossil fuels. Economists
have long recommended specific taxes on fossil-fuel energy sources as a way to
address these problems. That recommendation has gained additional urgency in
recent years in light of the fiscal situation outlined above. New revenue from
energy taxes could be used to reduce the debt or finance reform or reductions
in other taxes. Throughout this paper we use the phrase “carbon tax” to refer
to a tax on carbon dioxide. Although a carbon tax would be a new policy for the
federal government, the tax has been implemented in several other countries
(though—as discussed in the introduction to this volume— not always in a way
that conforms to the design principles advocated by economists). Finland, Norway,
Sweden, and Denmark instituted carbon taxes in the early
1990s, followed by the Netherlands
and Germany
in the latter part of the 1990s. The United Kingdom followed suit in
2001. Australia
introduced a carbon tax in 2011. North American jurisdictions have also
implemented carbon taxes. The town of Boulder, Colorado, adopted a carbon tax in 2006, and Montgomery County, Maryland,
did so in 2010. The Canadian provinces of Alberta
and Quebec adopted carbon taxes in 2007,
followed by British Columbia
in 2008…The United States faces substantial and unsustainable medium- and
long-term budget deficits, which will require a combination of tax increases
and spending cuts to resolve. On the tax side, one relatively attraction option
for raising revenue would be to impose a carbon tax. Besides its impact on
revenues, the tax would improve environmental outcomes, increase economic
efficiency, and allow the elimination of selected other tax subsidies and
spending programs. The distributional effects would be regressive but could be
offset by other policy changes. As policy makers search for solutions to the
fiscal problem and for ways to improve the tax system, carbon taxation could
play a positive role in addressing each situation.”

[61]. Daniel Rosenblum (carbon tax journalist)
(2007) “According to the Wall Street Journal’s Monthly Economic Forecasting
Survey; February 2007, 85% of the surveyed economists believe the government
should encourage development of alternatives to fossil fuels. When asked
"what is the most economically sound way for the government to encourage
development of alternatives to fossil fuels," 54% responded with
"taxes that raise the cost of purchasing fossil fuels." The next largest
category was "other" at 28%, followed by "subsidies for
producers of alternative fuels" at 13%. According to former Fed Chairman
Paul Volcker, as quoted in the International Herald Tribune, taxes either on
emissions or on petroleum could be effective in reducing global warming, that
it would be wiser to impose a tax on oil than wait for the market to force
prices up, that measures to reduce global warming would not be economically
devastating and, putting the issue in perspective: "What may happen to the
dollar, and what may happen to growth in China or whatever," he said,
raising his voice, "pale into insignificance compared with the question of
what happens to this planet over the next 30 or 40 years if no action is taken."
[61].

[62]. David Kestenbaum (economics journalist)
(2013): “Climate change seems like this complicated problem with a million
pieces. But Henry Jacoby, an economist at [83-Nobel-Laureate] MIT's business
school, says there's really just one thing you need to do to solve the problem.
Tax carbon emissions… As with any fix for climate change, a carbon tax would
hit some people harder than others. People with long commutes would pay more.
People who work in coal mines could lose their jobs. But here is where [John] Reilly
[economist from 83-Nobel-Laureate MIT] brings up what is perhaps the most
surprising thing about a carbon tax: If you do it right, he says, carbon tax
can be nearly painless for the economy as a whole. Besides reducing carbon
emissions, a carbon tax brings in a bunch of money — it's a tax after all. So,
Reilly says, you can reduce, say, income tax to balance out the new taxes
people are paying for carbon emissions. People pay more for gas, but they get
to keep more of their income. I called around and talked to a bunch of
economists about this, and they said the basic idea was sound: If you give the
carbon-tax money back by cutting income taxes, you can probably offset a lot of
the pain. President Obama has indicated he would support a market-based
solution to climate change. But a carbon tax would, of course, require an act
of Congress. And right now, that seems unlikely.” [62}.

[63]. Pope Francis slamming the ETS approach and supporting a full Carbon Price in his 2015 Encyclical letter
“Laudato si” (2015): “Once more, we need to reject a magical conception
of the market, which would suggest that problems can be solved simply by an
increase in the profits of companies or individuals. Is it realistic to hope
that those who are obsessed with maximising profits will stop to reflect on the
environmental damage which they will leave behind for future generations? Where
profits alone count, there can be no thinking about the rhythms of nature, its
phases of decay and regeneration, or the complexity of ecosystems which may be
gravely upset by human intervention. The strategy of buying and selling
"carbon credits" can lead to a new form of speculation, which would
not help reduce the emission of polluting gases worldwide. This system seems to
provide a quick and easy solution under the guise of a certain commitment to
the environment, but in no way does it allow for the radical change which
present circumstances require. Rather, it may simply become a ploy which
permits maintaining the excessive consumption of some countries and sectors” [63, 64] and

“The principle of the maximization of profits, frequently isolated from
other considerations, reflects a misunderstanding of the very concept of the
economy. As long as production is increased, little concern is given to whether
it is at the cost of future resources or the health of the environment; as long
as the clearing of a forest increases production, no one calculates the losses
entailed in the desertification of the land, the harm done to biodiversity, or
the increased pollution. In a word, businesses profit by calculating and paying
only a fraction of the costs involved. ‘Yet only when the economic and social
costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with
transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or
future generations,’ [Benedict XVI, [64]] can those actions be considered ethical. An
instrumental way of reasoning, which provides a purely static analysis of
realities in the service of present needs, is at work whether resources are
allocated by the market or by state central planning” [Section 195, [63].

[Editor's note: climate change economist Dr Chris Hope from
90-Nobel–Laureate University of Cambridge
has estimated a damage-related Carbon Price of US$150-$250 per tonne CO2-e
(CO2-equivalent) depending on location. Based on a Carbon Price of $100 per
tonne CO2-e, the World now has a Carbon Debt (in US dollars) from
historical CO2 pollution (mostly from European countries) of $270
trillion that is increasing at $10 trillion each year, and Australia (a world
leader in annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution) has a Carbon
Debt of $5.6 trillion that is increasing at $300 billion per year (increasing
at about $30,000 each year per head for under-30 year old Australians). Based
on a Carbon Price of $200 per tonne CO2-e [3], the World now has a Carbon
Debt (in US dollars) of $540 trillion that is increasing at $20 trillion each
year and Australia has a Carbon Debt of $11 trillion that is increasing at $600
billion per year (increasing at about $60,000 each year per head for under-30
year old Australians) (see Dr Chris Hope, “How high should climate change taxes
be?”, Working Paper Series, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge,
9.2011: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/research/workingpapers/wp1109.pdf
and “Carbon Debt Carbon Credit”: https://sites.google.com/site/carbondebtcarboncredit/
)].

[64]. Senator Bernie Sanders (US Senator for Vermont)(2014):
“The scientific community is clear: Global warming is
real and it is caused by human activity. In terms of droughts, heat waves,
floods, forest fires, disease, rising sea levels and extreme weather
disturbances, global warming is already causing devastating problems. The simple
truth is that if we do not act boldly and quickly these problems will only get
much worse in the years to come. Global warming is the greatest environmental
threat facing the planet and averting a planetary disaster will require a major
reduction in the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the
fossil fuel industry for too long has shifted these enormous costs of carbon
pollution onto the public, walking away with billions in profits while their
emissions help destroy the planet. The top five oil and gas companies alone made
over $1 trillion in the past decade. That's over $250 million per day. The
fossil fuel industry is destroying the planet with impunity and getting rich
while doing it. That must end. A carbon tax must be a central part of our
strategy for dramatically reducing carbon pollution, a view shared by economists
on both ends of the political spectrum, from Arthur Laffer and Gregory Mankiw on
the right to Robert Reich and Paul Krugman on the left. In fact, a wide array of
unexpected voices support a carbon tax, including former Republican Congressman
Bob Inglis, former Treasury Secretaries George Schultz and Robert Rubin, and the
four former EPA Administrators, all of whom served under Republican
administrations, who testified here in the U.S. Congress just last month" [65].

[65]. Professor James Hansen (adjunct professor at 85-Nobel-Laureate
Columbia University) commenting on Hansen et al PLOS paper (2013):"Our policy implication is that we have
to have a carbon fee and some of the major countries need to agree on that and
if that were done it would be possible to actually get global emissions to
begin to come down rapidly I think… Surely a few decades ago it made sense to
be very cautious about any further expansion of nuclear power but a lot has
happened over last few decades… Climate change is going to be uncontrollable if
we can't get carbon-free electricity ... Environmental groups need to look at
the real world" [66].

It
is distressing that, despite the clarity and imminence of the danger of
continued high fossil fuel emissions, governments continue to allow and even
encourage pursuit of ever more fossil fuels. Recognition of this reality and
perceptions of what is “politically feasible” may partially account for
acceptance of targets for global warming and carbon emissions that are well
into the range of “dangerous human-made interference” with climate. Although
there is merit in simply chronicling what is happening, there is still
opportunity for humanity to exercise free will. Thus our objective is to define
what the science indicates is needed, not to assess political feasibility.
Further, it is not obvious to us that there are physical or economic
limitations that prohibit fossil fuel emission targets far lower than 1000 GtC,
even targets closer to 500 GtC. Indeed, we suggest that rapid transition off
fossil fuels would have numerous near-term and long-term social benefits,
including improved human health and outstanding potential for job creation. A world summit on climate change will be held
at United Nations Headquarters in September 2014 as a preliminary to
negotiation of a new climate treaty in Paris
in late 2015. If this treaty is analogous to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol [257],
based on national targets for emission reductions and
cap-and-trade-with-offsets emissions trading mechanisms, climate deterioration
and gross intergenerational injustice will be practically guaranteed. The
palpable danger that such an approach is conceivable is suggested by
examination of proposed climate policies of even the most forward-looking of nations.
Norway, which along with the other Scandinavian countries has been among the
most ambitious and successful of all nations in reducing its emissions,
nevertheless approves expanded oil drilling in the Arctic and development of
tar sands as a majority owner of Statoil [258]–[259].
Emissions foreseen by the Energy Perspectives of Statoil [259],
if they occur, would approach or exceed 1000 GtC and cause dramatic climate change
that would run out of control of future generations. If, in contrast, leading
nations agree in 2015 to have internal rising fees on carbon with border duties
on products from nations without a carbon fee, a foundation would be
established for phaseover to carbon free energies and stable climate" [67].

[43]. Prins,
Gwyn and Galiana, Isabel and Green,
Christopher and Grundmann, Reiner and Korhola, Atte and Laird, Frank
and Nordhaus, Ted and Pielke
Jnr, Roger and Rayner, Steve and Sarewitz, Daniel and Shellenberger,
Michael and Stehr, Nico and Tezuko, Hiroyuki (2010) “The Hartwell Paper: a new direction for
climate policy after the crash of 2009”,Institute for Science, Innovation & Society, University of
Oxford; LSE Mackinder Programme, London School of Economics and Political
Science, London, UK : http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/27939/1/HartwellPaper_English_version.pdf .

Carbon Debt reflects the inescapable
future cost in today's dollars of fixing the remorselessly increasing climate
damage. Carbon Debt is the historical contribution of countries to
the carbon pollution of the atmosphere and can be variously expressed as Gt
CO2-e (gigatonnes or billions of tonnes of CO2-equivalent) or in dollar terms
by applying a Carbon Price. Thus leading climate economist Dr Chris Hope from
90-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University has estimated a damage-related
Carbon Price in US dollars of $150 per tonne CO2-e (see Dr Chris Hope, “How
high should climate change taxes be?”, Working Paper Series, Judge Business
School, University of Cambridge, 9.2011: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/research/workingpapers/wp1109.pdf
).

By way of a national example, Australia is a world-leading annual per capita
GHG polluter with a 1751-2006 Carbon Debt of 5.9 Gt C x (3.67 Gt CO2-e/Gt
C) x ($150 /t CO2-e) = $3.2 trillion plus a 2007-2015 Carbon Debt of 2 Gt
CO2-e/year x ($150 /t CO2-e) x 8 years = $2.4 trillion i.e. a total
1751-2015 Carbon Debt of $5.6 trillion (A$7.2 trillion) that is increasing at 2
Gt CO2-e /year x ($150 /t CO2-e) = $300 billion (A$385 billion) per year. Thus Australia
(population 24 million) with 0.34% of the world's population has 2.1% of the
world's Carbon Debt. The Australian Carbon Debt will have to be paid by the
young and future generations and for under-30 year old Australians is
increasing at about $30,000 (A$38,500) per person per year, noting that the
annual Australian per capita income is about $65,000 (A$83,000) (see Gideon
Polya, “2015 A-to-Z alphabetical list of actions and advocacies for
climate change activists”, Countercurrents,14 January, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya140115.htm
).